Gender Swap
by bananaslugboy
Summary: While playing around with magic America learns that gender doesn't work the way he thinks it does. Good thing he's got a genderfluid date mate to help him set the record straight.


**AN:** _I wrote one of those awful, transphobic, "gender swap" stories when I was 13 and posted it here, so now that I'm older and I've figured out my own gender identity and have a better understanding of how gender actually works, here is my penance for the story I wrote when I was younger (I also had a lot of fun with it, don't worry)_

Iceland had warned him not to play around with magic. They had told him that what you expected was not always what you got, that magic worked in peculiar, unpredictable ways.

But Iceland had also spent half of last Saturday patently placing large rocks around the backyard because, "the elves need a good selection of new homes this New Years", so America had ignored his date mates warnings in favor of the idea that said nation had their head so steadfastly in the clouds that their advice didn't have any basis in reality anyways.

This train of thought had lead him to his current situation.

He was sitting in the basement with one of England's magic books lying open on the ground in front of him. A small altar had been set up few feet away, and oh boy had the instructions on how to set it up been particular (why did he need a bowl of salt on the north part of the altar anyways?), and now that the altar was finished all he needed was a spell to do. After flipping through the book a little longer he decided on a spell that would change his gender.

He went through the motions of the spell slowly and precisely, but despite the uncharacteristic patience he had taken with it, the spell didn't appear to do anything.

As he finished up the spell he went to check for any effects. He felt around his chest but it was still as flat as ever. Then he unzipped his jeans to see if their had been any changes, but everything was the same down there.

However as they continued to check over their body and confirm that nothing had really changed they began to feel very uncomfortable with their appearance.

God, looking like this people...well they probably thought they were a man. That wasn't right.

Wait…when did they start thinking like that? They had always been fine with their body before, they had always identified as a man, they had always… Oh my god was this that body dysphoria thing that Iceland was always talking about?

That was when America realized that the magic had worked. That the representation of the U.S of A was now very much a woman.

And as she realized this she started to freak out. _This was not what she had had in mind_. _This was not what she was aiming for at all, and she needed to find Iceland right now and make them fix it._

Leaving her candles and incense to burn down to nubs, she went running up the basement stairs and burst into the living room where she found her date mate fully engrossed in _Jar City_ by Arnaldur Indriðason.

"WHAT THE FUCK ICY, WHY DIDN'T YOU WARN ME THAT THIS COULD HAPPEN?"

Iceland looked up startled, "What didn't I warn you about?"

America gave a stressed, and incredibly dramatic sigh, "Well I was trying to turn into a girl using magic, but it didn't give me boobs, or long hair like I thought it would, now I just feel different, and I don't like the way I look as much, and damn it! It wasn't supposed to happen this way! Why didn't you tell me this would happen? You need to fix it!"

Iceland cocked their head to the side in confusion, "Why would your gender changing make your hair grow out? Or give you breasts for that matter..."

"I don't know?! I figured the spell would turn me into a real girl or something!"

Her date mate glared at her, "What do you mean a real girl? I feel like a girl sometimes. Am I not a real girl on those days because I don't naturally have long hair and boobs?"

At that moment America wished she could eat her words. She had fucked up, she shouldn't have said that, and she knew without a doubt that she was about to dig herself into an even deeper hole.

"I..I mean you're genderfluid, that's different."

"Is it? I don't think it is. You know what America, I was going to help you reverse the spell, but since _I did in fact_ tell you not to go messing around with magic and you went and did it anyways, and since you seem to not have any actual respect or understanding for my gender identity, I think I'm going to make you wait a few weeks."

"What? No! You can't do that Icy! This sucks, I don't like this dysphoria thing at all!" she begged, making an exaggerated pair of puppy dog eyes at her partener, "Please! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that and I'll do anything!"

Iceland just rolled their eyes, "no, I've made up my mind. You can either figure out the magic on your own and fix it yourself, or you can wait two weeks and then I'll help you."

"But I don't want people to see me as a boy! Ice come on!"

"I think this will help you understand me better Bandaríki. You never take me seriously when I say that I'm having dysphoria. This will help you understand what I'm going through."

America realized that they had a point. Whenever her date mate had mentioned body dysphoria, or euphoria, or anything else related to being trans she tended to brush it off and ignore it. Iceland was right, this probably would help her understand them better.

But that didn't mean she couldn't pout about it.

"Fine! But I'm not happy about this. I hope you know that."

"I know. If you want to look more feminine I can teach you how to do makeup. We can even go buy you some more feminine clothing if you want."

America was still upset, buts he couldn't help but smile a little at this sentiment, "yeah, I would like that."

"Okay, we can go shopping tomorrow"

Yeah, okay, she thought, If Iceland had to do this all the time then she could handle it for two weeks.

She wandered out of the living room and back down to the basement. After all, she still needed to clean up her altar.


End file.
